Lords of the White Castle (48 page)

'Damn you,' Maude gasped. 'Damn you!' And dragged his mouth down to hers.

'Take me with you on the morrow,' she requested a few moments later when the shock waves of pleasure had receded sufficiently to give her coherent thought again.

Gasping harshly, eyes closed, Fulke shook his head. 'Too dangerous,' he got out between breaths. 'I don't know for sure how Llewelyn will respond.'

'But it's dangerous here too.'

'Not as bad as across the border.'

'So you wed me and then abandon me.' She pushed at him.

'Oh Christ, Maude, I don't have the strength for another fight.' Rolling over, he looked at the rafters. 'I need to parley with Llewelyn. The likelihood is that I can make an agreement with him, but there is always a danger that he will turn on me or take me hostage to win favour with John. I cannot bring you with me for these early negotiations. Better to stay here with a picked number of my men. If all goes well, then I will come for you.'

'And if it doesn't? Am I supposed to sit here, wringing my hands and wondering if I am a wife still or a grieving widow?'

'I know it will be hard… sometimes I think that the waiting is worse than the doing, but you must see that you are safer here for the immediate future.' He reached for her hand and took it in a sweat-warm grip. Maude fought the urge to rebuff him. These might be the last moments they had together; if they were, she would be smothered in a burden of guilt, had she turned her back on him.

'If it comes to a fight, I need to have my wits about me,' he said. 'If I have to look out for you, my attention will be split and it will be more dangerous for us both -could mean the difference between life and death.' He squeezed her hand. 'I came for you at Canterbury; I will come for you at Higford, I swear on my soul.'

'Indeed you do swear on your soul,' Maude said with intensity, 'for if you do not keep your word, may you be damned in hell.' She threw herself against him, clinging to the damp, taut flesh, wanting him inside her again. To possess and be possessed.

And because he had made a promise on his soul and he knew that to fail her now would be to put a tarnish on his oath, Fulke somehow managed to rise to the occasion a third time.

The goblet was fashioned of silver, inlaid with a hunting scene in black niello. Oblivious of its beauty or cost, John seized it from the table and hurled it against the chamber wall. William of Salisbury ducked. Sticky wine dregs splattered his tunic. Hubert Walter stood his ground and narrowly missed being brained.

'Fulke FitzWarin!' John roared like a curse. 'I am sick to the back teeth of hearing his name in connection with outlawry and murder! And you are his accomplice!' He stabbed his forefinger at the Archbishop. 'You had him in your grasp and you let him go. Now Morys FitzRoger is dead and his sons clamour for vengeance!'

Hubert's pale complexion flushed slightly, but he maintained his composure. 'Sire, whatever his failings and wrongdoings, Fulke served my brother diligently and well. Since we are speaking plainly, it seems to me that you did him an injustice when you refused him Whittington. Some folk would say that your denial smacked of vindictiveness.'

John looked around for something else to throw, but there was only the chessboard within reach and the sight of the object, with all its associations, made him feel physically ill. 'So there are different rules for different people?' He bared his teeth. 'I deny him land and I am vindictive. He slaughters Morys FitzRoger and he's justified? Christ, Hubert, you're sailing dangerously close to the wind.'

'We only have his son's word as to what happened,' Hubert said. 'I doubt that Fulke would go out
of
his way to lay an ambush on the Shrewsbury road when he had women with him.'

'Yes, let's talk about the "women", shall we, or one woman in particular. Maude Walter. 'John's fists opened and closed. 'For that alone, I ought to dismiss you as Chancellor and confiscate Robert le Vavasour's lands.'

'It was my brother's dying wish that Maude and Fulke be brought together. An outlaw Fulke FitzWarin may be, but that does not make him excommunicate and you know as well as I that the matter of his inheritance could have been settled amicably long ago. Besides, Robert le Vavasour would never have accepted his daughter's match to Falco de Breauté.'

John's chest heaved. 'You let
him
walk in and out of Canterbury without raising the hue and cry.'

'I am a man of God as well as your servant,' Hubert said.

'When it suits you.'

William of Salisbury, who had been silent thus far, stooped to pick up the goblet. He turned it round in his large hands and said slowly,' Why don't you pardon him, John? You need fighting men of sound ability, and no one can deny FitzWarin's prowess. Better with you than against you.'

'I'd sooner wipe my arse with a leper's loincloth,' John sneered, and the simmering anger inside him came dangerously close to boiling point again. As if it wasn't enough that Fulke FitzWarin was a thorn in his side, his own circle of kin and advisers were sympathetic towards the son of a whore. He could not tolerate a betrayal, particularly from his half-brother. Will was sheriff of Wiltshire, but he wore a blindfold when FitzWarin was active in the county. It was like having a favourite dog turn and bite off the hand that fed it.

'I want FitzWarin brought to justice,' John seethed. 'And now.'

'I agree with Will, conciliation is the wisest path,' said Hubert. 'You have been set on bringing Fulke to justice for two years and nothing has come of it but expense and humiliation.'

John showed his teeth. They were white and strong and his smile when genuine was his best asset. He was not, however, smiling now. 'For a start, the sheriff of Shropshire can go. FitzAlan's far too sympathetic. Henry Furnel can take his place. Gwyn FitzMorys is to be given a hundred marks from the treasury to increase his troop and pursue his father's murderers, and the hundred men I have already assigned to the task are to be kept in place.' He glared at his half-brother. 'And if you do not look to the laxness in your own shrievalty, Will, I will replace you too.'

Salisbury flushed but said nothing.

'All for one outlaw?' Hubert raised his brows. 'Surely the resources would be better spent in Normandy?'

'I want Fulke FitzWarin brought to his knees,' John said obstinately. 'He's more vulnerable now that he has a wife.' The thought, as he spoke it, gave him a brief surge of pleasure. Fulke would not move as fast or be as daring with a wife to consider. He must either bring her with him or leave her in a place of protection. It would be worth sending out spies as well as soldiers. Maude Walter had lessons to learn too. FitzWarin had not abducted her across his saddle; the bitch had gone willingly. As John thought what he would do to her when she came into his custody it soothed the gripe in his belly. He turned to pace the room, each step flaring the crimson wool of his court gown.

Part of what he was thinking must have shown on his face for Hubert Walter exchanged glances with Will Salisbury.

'You will need to tread carefully where Lady Maude is concerned,' the Archbishop said on a warning note.

'Meaning?' John sneered.

'Meaning that her father is powerful in his own sphere and has alliances with neighbouring lords of similar stature who need little excuse to foment unrest at the best of times. Meaning that she was my sister-by-marriage. I know you have certain "preferences" where women are concerned. I would hate to see her become one of them because you hold a grudge.'

John was beginning to realise how his father had come to the murder of Thomas Becket. A meddling Archbishop of Canterbury was a bane. When that Archbishop was also the papal legate and the Chancellor, and had been responsible for training all the senior civil servants upon whom John's administration depended, the contest was frustrating and unfair. Worse still. John needed Hubert Walter's experience and incisive mind to keep afloat the treasury that his beloved, chivalrous brother Richard had drained to the lees.

'If you had closed your fist on FitzWarin when he came to Canterbury, Morys FitzRoger would still be alive and I would not have the worry of a dangerous outlaw at large when I'm about to sail for Normandy,' he snapped, passing the blame.

Hubert Walter spread his arms. 'He came under a truce to talk of my brother. He was a guest in my house. Arrest me if you want.'

John gave him a hostile stare. 'Thomas Becket looked the part,' he said snidely. 'Your jowls proclaim that the only thing you are a martyr to is food.'

Hubert ignored the jibe. 'When I was Justiciar I recommended that Fulke FitzWarin be given Whittington and that FitzRoger be compensated with a different fief. If that had happened, you would now have a warrior of William Marshal's ability waiting to sail with you. As it is, he's ranged against you instead.'

'I will not be held to ransom by the likes of Fulke FitzWarin,' John hissed. The discussion was going round in circles. His pacing had brought him back to the chessboard. Using forefinger and thumb, John flicked the bishop on its side with a spurt of malicious pleasure. 'It will be as I say. Let him be hunted down and brought before me in chains like the common thief and murderer he is.' He flashed a glance at Hubert and did not miss the distaste in the older man's eyes. 'You warn him, old man, and, archbishop or not, I will see you in chains too. And you, Will, take heed. I've been generous, but that can stop in an instant.' He snapped his fingers to emphasise the control he had over his half-brother's purse strings.

Salisbury shook his head sorrowfully. 'You are making a grave mistake.'

John moodily flicked over a knight to join the bishop. 'Time will tell, won't it?' he said.

CHAPTER 25

'They say that the Welsh can move so quietly and track with such skill that you do not know they are upon you until you receive a spear in your back.'

Fulke smiled at the apprehension in Ivo's voice. Put his brother in the midst of a melee or ask him to charge across open ground at opposing cavalry and he would not balk. But give him the massive greenery of the Welsh mountain forests and the possibility of wild Welshmen lurking in ambush and he became as anxious as a nun in a brothel.

'They are men like us, not the faery folk they would have us believe,' Fulke said. 'If we are being watched, they will see that I carry a white banner on my spear and that there are not enough of us to begin a war.'

'But we could be a raiding party,' William said, glancing around as if he could pierce the heavy, green silence.

'If we stay to the worn roads, we won't be molested.' Fulke hoped that he was right. It was unlikely that Llewelyn's men would attack first and ask questions later, but not impossible. The relationship between the Welsh and the English was a delicate one. As often as truces were made they were broken. The Welsh would come raiding and seize on lands that they claimed were theirs by ancestry. Oswestry had been Welsh and English so many times that it was like the oche on a tug
of
war. The English would try to village-hop, taking a bite out of the fertile Welsh settlements on the border and pushing the Welsh back into the forest. Fulke's own family was as guilty as any. Much of the land surrounding Whittington had as much claim to be Welsh as English.